Polish Puzzle

I recently decided perhaps I should work on a jigsaw puzzle when I wake in the night. In the past I would have read some mystery novel, but the publishing industry no longer satisfies my needs and has left me in a vacuum filled by nibbling and cruising the net at three in the morning.

I’ve discovered solving puzzles is really not much different from reading a novel by a new author. When I take the pieces out of the sealed plastic bag, an innovation since I was a child, I get a sense of the manufacturer. Are the pieces too thin or too thick, are they too small or too large, are they regular or irregular? Are the colors clear or blurred, are they cut to obscure or reveal the more obvious features?

My mother taught me to always begin by doing the border. When I separate out the pieces with flat sides I learn to trust or distrust the puzzle maker. As I try to create the border, I learn if the picture on the box is reliable. If pieces are interchangeable or too many cannot be identified, I take a dislike to the puzzle. Some may enjoy puzzles that emulate the randomness of daily life, much as readers like hard boiled detectives. In this recreation, I prefer some boundaries, perhaps for the same reason I prefer Agatha Christie.

A puzzle made in Poland was the oddest experience. The pieces were square cut, with no curves, except the tabs. The only variation was within those tabs, some of which were diagonally cut. They brought to mind life in a totalitarian regime where everything must conform externally, and you learn to differentiate individuality within that straitened context.

Luckily, the picture of the Iguazu Falls in Argentina had enough variations, so it was easy to separate the pieces into three piles - the sky, the plants, the rest. Within the color groups, each essentially a different puzzle, the process became mechanical. There was only one puzzle shape, the standard two end tabs and two center cuts. So I separated the pieces again into those that were obviously horizontal and those that were vertical.

Then, it was often a process of trying every possible piece in a location to build the identity of the next piece which again could only be identified by trial and error. Strangely, this was not as boring as it sounds, because it was possible to use the picture on the box to narrow the choices for particular sections.

But still when all was done, there was one more Soviet surprise waiting. There were two pieces missing, one from the center, and one from near the center.

Notes: Castorland puzzle #B-51380.